Sandhya, 23, loves her husband. But at times, she also hates and fears him. The wife of a drug addict who was tested HIV+ two years ago, Sandhya lives in a constant state of fear. She fears their little son may follow in his father's footsteps. Her husband beats her when he's high, injects in front of the child, has violent fits of rage when denied money for his dose, smashing window panes, breaking the legs off furniture, setting alight clothes and sarees, and sells off whatever he can get his hands on. Sometimes he threatens to infect his wife with blood from a syringe, and tries to have sex without a condom. "I feel really scared when we have sex. I'm afraid the condom might tear and I may get infected," says Sandhya. Plaugued by economic problems, and mentally and physically exhausted, with little support from her family and her in-laws, Sandhya is depressed and suicidal. "I thought it would be better to commit suicide than to die from his beatings or live with them, so some time ago I consumed poison. But they found out about it and took me to hospital. I was not even allowed to die."

Sandhya's is one of a collection of first-hand accounts of how individuals in Nepal are coping when someone in the family gets HIV/AIDS. The voices of fathers, mothers, sisters, wives, barely getting through the day to day struggles of living with injecting drug users who are HIV positive or have AIDS, come through poignantly in Unheard Voices, a 105-page volume published by Panos South Asia. In Kathmandu Valley alone, some estimates say, as many as 50 percent of an estimated 30,000 injecting drug users are infected.

There is a sense of helplessness and hopelessness in the testimonies, of frustration and despair, of resignation, but there are also glimmerings of courage and hope. The book comes in the wake of Positive Life, another volume published in 1999 by Panos South Asia and containing the oral testimonies of fifteen Nepali men and women living with HIV. While Positive Life provides readers with an insight into the lives of people, men and women, living with HIV, Unheard Voices takes the reader beyond their experiences "to focus on families whose world is suddenly changed because someone in the house is infected with HIV, especially among the poor for whom infection of the only earning member of the household has a chain of repercussions," explains the preface. "In their own words they illustrate the interplay of a wide range of socio-economic problems resulting from HIV/AIDS which directly threaten their survival and well-being."

Since the interviewers came across few accounts of those infected through sexual contact-possibly because issues of sexuality are not openly discussed in Nepali society-the editors note that Unheard Voices is devoted to the testimonies of families who have been affected by someone who is a drug user in the family, who has HIV AIDS or who has died after contracting AIDS.

The interviewees express a range of experiences, such as the stigma and discrimination felt in society: "people don't treat me well because of my husband," says 30 year-old Sapna. Bhim Lal, 59, and Tulsi Devi, 47, are anguished parents. "He would bully and blackmail all of us at home. Now, he even strikes us," says Bhim Lal of his eldest son, an injecting drug user with HIV. "I wish someone would kill him. Even if he were to live he won't do anything other than make us cry. It is better off with him dead," says Tulsi Devi of her eldest son who is also an injecting drug user. Tulsi Devi is an exception. Unlike many in-laws who extend the same indifference they feel for an HIV infected son to their daughter-in-law, as many of the stories reveal, Tulsi Devi is concerned about her daughter-in-law. "My son will die soon. My daughter-in-law is good-looking. If she doesn't get infected, someone will marry her. I say, 'Son, she's someone else's daughter, don't ruin her life'."

"Interviewing such families was extremely challenging and painful," says Sangeeta Lama, one of the four researchers who travelled around Nepal collecting testimonies for this volume. "First, it's difficult to meet people with HIV and even if you do and they are forthcoming about their illness because they want to share their problems with someone or want to know the latest information and cures, talking to the families is extremely difficult. People usually disassociate themselves or ostracise members who have HIV/AIDS. HIV contracted through drugs or the sexual route is looked on more as a crime. There's no sympathy, just a need to get rid of the burden."

Lama also highlights how the current HIV/AIDS awareness programs and media campaigns focus on prevention and control, but rarely address the needs of people already infected and their families who are not well equipped to deal with the trauma of knowing that a family member has HIV/AIDS. "One only hopes that the book will encourage readers to think about people infected with HIV and their families in a different light and with more empathy and understanding."